Bridges Loc: Memphis, Charleston SC, now Nazareth PA

Depends on the contest. Some have very rigid rules while others permit almost anything. If you are entering a nature contest for instance, some do not allow any sign of "the hand of man" to appear in the photo (exceptions being Osprey nesting on power towers which is commonly their natural habitat, or barn swallows shots showing parts of barns or the underside of bridges). Nature shots of flowers will only be allowed for wild flowers by some contests while others will allow domestic varieties to be shown. Just always ask for the rules, most contests are very explicit about what is permitted and what is not.

sippyjug104 Loc: Missouri

Is not something as simple as telling the person to smile for the picture manipulating? Is not arranging items for a pleasing composition manipulating? Is not moving the viewpoint of the camera manipulating?

Frankly, by the very definition anything we do to intervene when taking a photo is a form of manipulating it.

And lastly, and more importantly, telling My Better Half that my camera gear did not cost that much IS NOT MANIPULATING.

rcarol

I beg to differ with your assumption that in the good old days the submitted image was not manipulated. Dodging and burning combined with chemical bleaching was a common means of altering the final image.

Toment Loc: FL, IL

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

It went a lot further than that. Replacing skies and adding or removing objects were all done in the darkroom way before digital photography could be imagined. For an idea of what could be done in the darkroom, see photographer Jerry Uelsmann's work: https://www.uelsmann.net

srg

One reason to take a photo is document the beauty that we see. Often when we process the photo we are disappointed. Somehow the grandeur did not fully translate to our devices. "Editing" is merely the process of trying to make the resulting photo resemble what we saw more fully.

Photec

"PHOTOGRAPY" translates literally to "Light Writing". I learned this over 50 years ago while studying photography in college. Fifty years ago I joined my first camera club and quickly found that many differences that may, or may not, be "allowed" in the use of a picture.

As a Photographer, you are the author of a visual story, just like a writer of a article is the author the written story. There are certain rules that must be followed for many different purposes. In journalism nothing can be done to a picture of a crime scene that in any way alters the truth of the visual facts. When entering "Club" competitions there are specific rules that must be followed. An example might be; in Nature Category, the image must not be altered or manipulated in any way. That means that if you shot an outstanding image that has a piece of litter in it, YOU CAN NOT remove that litter in post processing.

You are the author of YOUR picture, but if you submit it for specific use it MUST follow the user's rules.

cambriaman Loc: Central CA Coast

Perhaps banning compositing more than one image might be a satisfactory compromise between the NO alterations and the open Pandora's Box use of Photoshop or other image editor?

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

There are no rules for good photographs, great photographs have just one: the photoshop work is exquisite.

goldenyears Loc: Lake Osewgo

About altering photos... it depends: In 1998 I started a website to share the many photos of airplanes I took as a kid in the 50's and 60's. Very soon I started receiving photos from other amateur aviation enthusiasts like me and I reorganized the website into "Collections" because I felt like I should be the "caretaker" of their photos. But I "cleaned up" their photos to make them look better. Then I began to receive old, rare, photos from "serious" aviation enthusiasts... museum archivists, authors, etc. One of them warned me not to edit the photos because, he said, the photos depict important information about the history, time and place the photos were taken, and that if I edited the photos the website (and he) would lose the respect of the community of aviation historians. I had lost sight of the implications of being a "caretaker." So I asked him to join me in the administration of the website as the site historian, and to set the "rules" for editing photos. We've been at it together for twenty years and we have over 15,000 photo contributions on the site, and more than that in an archive awaiting publication. It took me a while to get used to the idea of not "making the photos look better." But, now, for my personal photography, I have no reluctance whatsoever to "make my photos look better." It's like I've been freed from a necessary restriction.

JohnR Loc: The Gates of Hell

Curmudgeon Loc: SE Arizona

In the film days, many picture takers used B&W for the very reason that images could be manipulated to a greater degree than most people knew. Like most I started out with B&W and quickly learned I could not begin to match the quality prints created in personal darkrooms. I certainly never had the resources to buy, or a place to set up a darkroom or room for an enlarger. Then I discovered the "Great Equalizer".

Kodachrome. You couldn't process it at home but used pre-paid mailers and sent it to Kodak to be processed. The quality of your pictures was decided by your skill. My Nikon F was fully manual. ASA (ISO) was set by the film you used. My Nikon F required me, with the help of a hand held light meter to set the other two legs of the exposure triangle based on the meter. I knew intuitively about the Exposure Triangle from simple experience. Then to top things off focus was accomplished manually with no little green light to tell me if I had achieved focus.

I could now compete, except for gear and experience and gear, with the best of the National Geographic photogs. The only requirement was that I get everything right in the camera

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

Actually, National Geographic still has an advantage because when transparencies are published, there is some room for adjustment in the printing process.

cbtsam Loc: Monkton, MD

One of my favorite photographers, Ansel Adams, said these things:

"Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships."

"You don’t take a photograph, you make it."

And that was back in the days of B&W film.

LP9

Ah, the muse.

I have thought about this issue many times in the last few years. I started with film, chemistry, darkroom and have progressed to digital over the years. I have been all over the place in my thinking about your question.

However, when I really dig in, all forms of photography are interpretive and manipulative. Ansel Adams had a notion of previewing an image before the shutter was clicked. He called it previsualization. It was a process of interpretation to achieve a specific goal in the final image. I think that's what we all do anyway. Whether it's before we shoot, after we shoot or while we are shooting we are manipulating electrons and protons and emotions and assumptions to interpret a scene that none of us really see in the same way anyway.

Our vision is constructed of variables that are at least, somewhat unique to each and every one of us. A photograph is NOT the actual scene. It's an interpretation of what we wanted to, or thought we saw. I'm not sure how we would agree on exactly what any of us see.

I know there are "purists" and they have their discussion points and emotions about film and they are valid and embraceable abstractions about photography. I just don't think they are any more valid than the arguments FOR abstraction, be it film or digital.

I better send this off before I change my mind, again!